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Hitoshi wasn’t stupid. Like the drop of the other shoe, he’d known all along this was coming.
It was a Thursday evening— over two weeks since the upheaval of Hitoshi’s life— that Aizawa came home with the news.
“They found your previous foster parents. They’ve been arrested. The investigation’s officially underway now.”
Hitoshi didn’t know why he froze. By all rights, the news should have made him feel better. Instead, dread settled like a stone in his stomach.
Aizawa’s voice was gentle— too gentle. “They’re going to need you to give a more detailed statement down at the station.”
Hitoshi’s throat was dry, but he cleared it enough to ask hoarsely, “When?”
“As soon as you’re able. Tomorrow, if you’re up for it.”
Hitoshi nodded.
“Tomorrow?”
Hitoshi nodded again. He could feel Aizawa’s eyes on him, but for once, he didn’t really care.
“The kids?” he managed to ask. “Do… Will they have to give statements? Or testify?”
“Not Haru and Mei,” Aizawa said firmly. “Their medical records may be drawn as evidence of neglect, but that’s it.”
There was a gaping hole in Hitoshi’s chest. “And Aiko?”
Aizawa hesitated. “I’m not sure,” he said finally. “As of right now, they’re not calling on her for a statement. But if this goes to court, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that she could be asked to testify.”
That sick feeling was back.
“But we’re a long ways away from that,” Aizawa assured him. “For now, let’s just get through this.”
“Yeah.” Hitoshi stared at his hands. They were unrecognizable. Somebody else’s.
He went to bed without dinner soon after. His stomach hurt all night, but it wasn’t from hunger.
***
Neither Aizawa nor Hizashi entered Hitoshi’s room without his permission. It was exceedingly strange, but another one of their oddities that Hitoshi had grown used to. So when a knock came on his door early the next morning, he didn’t think twice about it.
“I’m awake,” he said, raising his voice just enough to be heard through the door. He sat up, swallowing past the thick haze of exhaustion that permeated his bones like a familiar fog. He hadn’t slept.
“It’s eight,” Aizawa told him. “How would you feel about getting to the station by nine-thirty?”
Hitoshi was numb in every sense of the word. “Okay.”
“Come on out when you’re ready. I’ll have coffee in the kitchen.”
Hitoshi didn’t answer, but he heard Aizawa move away from the door a few seconds later. It took a minute of convincing himself, but eventually, Hitoshi managed to stand up and stumble into some clean clothes.
Breakfast was a blur. Hitoshi sat at the table, sipping at the coffee Aizawa had set in front of him. Aizawa looked about as exhausted as Hitoshi felt, but at least he was moving at reasonable speeds.
The most Hitoshi could stomach after a night of no sleep was a few bites of plain rice. It settled heavy in his stomach, but he managed to keep it down. He could feel Aizawa’s slight disapproval, his silent push for Hitoshi to put back just a little more, but fortunately, his teacher remained quiet. Right now, Hitoshi was pretty sure he would obey if Aizawa told him to eat, and he was even more certain that if he took one more bite, he would throw it right back up.
He chased the half-hearted meal with coffee, slow sips that less woke him up than they did curl his tongue. He’d always enjoyed the subtle bitterness of coffee, but right now, it wasn’t doing his rolling stomach any favors.
He blinked and his surroundings changed. The carpet was rough under his knees even through his pants as he knelt to tie his shoes. He took his jacket— new as of last week because apparently his old one wasn’t suitable— when Aizawa handed it to him. He didn’t feel the cold air on his skin as he followed his teacher to the car, but he watched his breath as it puffed out in front of him.
Everything seemed strange and far away. Or maybe that was just him.
He blinked again and suddenly he was sitting in a cold chair, listening to a detective he vaguely recognized explain the process of statement-giving to him.
“—this is a private room, with just you, me, and your guardian. I’ll ask you questions to guide you. You answer as much as you can while I record your responses for posterity. And remember,” the man said, with what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile. “You’re not in trouble.”
Hitoshi took a deep breath. The air tasted stale, like the front desk of a motel. He wondered distantly how he’d gotten here.
Though he’d caught only the tail end of the detective’s spiel, he nodded his agreement.
“Tsukauchi.” Aizawa’s voice startled him and he jerked around to find Aizawa leaning against the wall behind him. He met his mentor’s gaze briefly, but looked away before he could read his face.
“Eraserhead,” the detective— Tsukauchi?— said with mild amusement. “Did you have a question?”
“Hitoshi gets a choice in whether his guardian is present or not, correct?”
“Actually—” Tsukauchi winced at this. “Because he’s only fifteen, the law requires a guardian be present. Sixteen is the age he can give his consent with a parent’s.”
“Can we not take into account—”
“It’s fine.” Hitoshi’s words surprised even himself. He swallowed past the strange taste in his mouth and turned in his chair to make eye contact with Aizawa. “It’s fine.”
For a moment, his teacher just studied him. “All right,” he said finally, giving a little nod. “If you’re sure.”
Tsukauchi seemed to wait for a moment, his eyes on Aizawa as if looking for a cue. At his nod, Tsukauchi shifted forward.
“I’m going to start the recording,” he said, reaching for a little black box in the middle of the desk. “Would you please state your full name for the record?”
“Shinsou Hitoshi.”
There was a cup of water on the table. It had a few sips taken out of it, and Hitoshi realized distantly that it must have been his. He reached for it and when no one stopped him, he took a sip.
“Okay,” Tsukauchi said, opening a file. “Are you ready to begin?”
Hitoshi nodded. “Yeah.”
“When, approximately, would you say the neglect from your foster parents began?”
A tough one right out the gate.
“Um— I don’t—” He winced. “I don’t know?” How was he supposed to pinpoint that?
“That’s all right,” Tsukauchi said easily. “How about when you were placed in the home?”
Hitoshi relaxed marginally. That was easier. “Two and a half years ago,” he said. “I was thirteen.”
“And were the kids already there?”
“Aiko was,” Hitoshi said. “Haru and Mei came as a sibling set a few months after me. Mei had only just been born. It wasn’t that bad,” he added, almost as an afterthought. Those words had taken up residence on the tip of his tongue, locked and loaded at all times. He was an expert in deflection and though his body had been removed from the home, he guessed his mind had never really left it if he was still willing to make those kinds of claims.
To his credit, Tsukauchi didn’t blink. “All right,” he said easily. “Can you tell me about when it started to get bad?”
“Um.” Another hard one. “I don’t know that I can tell you when,” Hitoshi said uneasily. “But I can tell you what.”
“Okay,” Tsukauchi agreed. “Tell me.”
With the permission ringing in his ears and the recorder humming on the table, the words tumbled out of him like they’d been clawing for freedom all his life.
He talked about the squirrel fund. He talked about those cold winter nights with no heat, their foster parents long gone. He talked about the math he did, scrawled on the back of his homework assignments, as he figured out how to stretch the money. He talked about the things he sacrificed for formula, diapers, that $10 field trip fee Haru had begged him for. He talked about the bills that stacked up on the table and the first time the lights went out.
He talked about their foster parents, how they lived more as ghosts than they did parents, flickering in and out of the house as it suited them. He talked about everything that hurt and everything that didn’t.
But mostly he talked about the kids.
Their little faces. Their growth stunted by Hitoshi’s inability to provide. The way they’d learned not to cry when hunger ate away at their insides. How smart they were. How independent. How little Mei had been in the beginning and how perfectly she’d fit in his skinny, thirteen-year-old arms.
He didn’t get to see the kids every day anymore, didn’t get to wake up to their little voices, so instead, he let his memories spill out of him like an outpouring of love.
He was shaking by the end, one hand curled into the collar of his shirt tight enough to feel the tug on the back of his neck. He felt raw, like an exposed wire. Like if anyone touched him, he’d take them both out.
“But I managed,” he said finally. His throat was tired from talking. “I did my best. It wasn’t that bad.” He’d said the phrase so many times it had begun to lose its meaning, if it had ever had any to begin with. It sounded like a joke to him now.
“You keep saying that,” Tsukauchi said gently. “But I think we both know that’s not true.”
“It wasn’t anything I didn’t deserve.” Hitoshi wasn’t sure he’d ever faced the idea directly, but now that the words were out, hanging in the air like a bullet, he couldn’t deny his belief in them.
But Tsukauchi wasn’t a detective for nothing. “Did the kids deserve it?”
Rage sparked in Hitoshi’s chest, the most vivid emotion he’d felt in a long time.
Aizawa’s voice came from behind, a low warning. “Tsukauchi—”
Tsukauchi cut him off with his raised hand.
“Of course they didn’t,” Hitoshi said fiercely. “They deserved better than anything I could give them.”
Tsukauchi’s expression was kind. “Then what makes you any different?”
Hitoshi opened his mouth to answer, but fell silent when he realized he didn’t have anything to say. “I— I don’t know,” he said finally. “I just am.”
It seemed Tsukauchi had another question, but Aizawa’s low voice cut him off.
“Does this pertain to the investigation?”
Hitoshi relaxed marginally at the reminder of his teacher’s presence.
Tsukauchi hesitated. “No,” he said finally. “The long-term effect of neglect does, but it can be proven in other ways.”
Aizawa gave a satisfied nod. Hitoshi let out a little breath of relief.
“Okay,” Tsukauchi said, closing his file and setting it down on the desk. “Shinsou, there’s just one more thing I need to ask you about.”
Hitoshi nodded.
“I’m going to preface this by reminding you that you are not in trouble.”
Instantly, Hitoshi stiffened. Nothing good had ever started out with a statement like that.
Unbeknownst to Hitoshi’s discomfort, Tsukauchi continued. “Your former foster parents were questioned shortly after their arrest. They alleged… a few things against you.”
Hitoshi’s mouth was dry. He took a sip of water and pressed the paper cup to his cheek, hoping that the cool sensation would have a hand in grounding him. It didn’t work.
At Hitoshi’s silence, Tsukauchi went on. “Your foster mother alleged illegal Quirk usage by you.” The detective looked incredibly uncomfortable. Hitoshi’s stomach had fallen out through his feet. “She said that you brainwashed her.”
The world fell out from under him.
Tsukauchi was still speaking, but it was like Hitoshi was listening from a mile underwater. He couldn’t hear more than muffled speech as his mind sank further into a familiar dull panic.
Then a hand landed on his knee and he jumped, the sound coming back in a rush.
“Hitoshi?”
The touch had jerked some part of Hitoshi back to himself and all of a sudden, he found Aizawa crouched beside him. His teacher’s dark eyes peered up at him, searching in concern.
“Are you with us?”
“Sensei,” Hitoshi rasped.
Aizawa’s expression relaxed marginally. “It’s okay,” he soothed, removing his hand from Hitoshi’s knee. “You’re safe. You’re not in trouble.”
All at once, Aizawa’s presence— which had been so comforting to have just moments ago— felt like little more than a threat.
Hitoshi shied away from him, turning his head and digging his nails into his legs hard enough that could feel it through his jeans.
“Hitoshi?” Aizawa sounded uncharacteristically uncertain.
I don’t want you here, Hitoshi almost spit. But that wasn’t allowed. Tsukauchi had told him it wasn’t allowed and Hitoshi had agreed to speak with Aizawa in the room, but fuck, he hadn’t expected this.
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” Aizawa said, and his words nearly tugged a bitter laugh from Hitoshi’s throat.
Right. Just as there was one door out of this room, there was only one way forward for Hitoshi here. It just killed him that his teacher— his mentor, the person in his life whose opinion he valued most— would be here to watch as he confessed his way into disgrace.
He sat up a little, with a sharp, cold breath that hurt his lungs. “It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine— nothing about this was fine— but Hitoshi had never been a quitter.
“Can you attest to your foster mother’s accusation?” Tsukauchi’s voice was gentle and unprobing, but it might as well have been a scalpel for how it split Hitoshi apart. “Did you brainwash her?”
Hitoshi swallowed thickly, but it only made his throat hurt worse. “Yes.”
He felt it when the air shifted, when Aizawa and Tsukauchi met eyes over the desk. He felt his mentor’s opinion of him shift irrevocably. But mostly, he felt shame. It was unbearable, spreading hot and fast like lava through the open spaces of his body.
“I’m sorry.” His throat burned raw from his begging. His hands were out in offerance, his wrists exposed, pushed onto the desk towards Tsukauchi. He wasn’t sure if he was begging for forgiveness or for punishment. The guilt was eating him alive— either one would be mercy. “I’m so sorry. I know it was illegal, I know, but I couldn’t—”
His throat seized and he choked, squeezing his eyes shut as hot tears burned in his eyes.
“Hitoshi—”
Hitoshi jolted as Aizawa’s hand settled on his knee again. The touch was gone in an instant, but Hitoshi had already curled away, sucking in a hiss through his teeth.
Tsukauchi placed his gloved hands carefully over Hitoshi’s and slid Hitoshi’s offered wrists back towards him.
Hitoshi’s actions were indefensible, but he had to say something. He couldn’t sit in this silence anymore.
“I was scared.” There was very little he remembered about that night— his foster father had shoved him down the stairs a few hours later and he’d woken up at the bottom of the landing with a headache that seemed to reach all the way down his spine— but he remembered the fear. It was hard not to when Hitoshi was made of it.
“You were scared,” Tsukauchi repeated softly. “Why was that?”
Hitoshi had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his face from crumpling. Even so, his eyes burned with unfallen tears.
“Aiko.” It came out hoarse and breathless.
“Breathe.”
Hitoshi did his best to obey Aizawa’s quiet command, but even so, his breathing stuttered.
Tsukauchi gave him a long while to recover before he asked his next question. (He could have waited a year— Hitoshi still wouldn’t have been ready.)
“Did something happen to Aiko?”
Hitoshi squeezed his eyes shut. “They— they wanted to send her away. She had nightmares, she was loud in the night— she couldn’t help it, but they didn’t care.” He’d never spoken the words out loud, never voiced the cold terror that had gripped him that day, his hand scrabbling behind him for Aiko as he tried to reason with his foster mother and her bloodshot eyes. “She was scared.”
I was scared. He didn’t repeat it. It all meant the same anyway.
“I understand.” Tsukauchi’s voice was unreadable.
Hitoshi filled in the blanks for him:
“I used my Quirk. I brainwashed her. I made her forget she’d ever wanted to send Aiko away.”
Out loud, it was unforgivable. Even Hitoshi couldn’t have mercy on himself, so how could the law? How could Aizawa?
“I— I broke the law. I—” He looked up then, his wet eyes finding his mentor’s like a magnet. The words died on his tongue. He looked away, his teeth sinking into his lip to quell another wave of tears. “I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry I broke the law. I’m sorry I wasn’t what you thought I was. I’m sorry you wasted your time on me.
He meant them all.
He curled his legs to his chest on the chair, wrapping his arms around them and burying his face in his knees.
“Hitoshi…” Aizawa’s voice was filled with more emotion than Hitoshi knew what to do with. He sounded like he wanted to say something, like some declaration was pushing at his insides. But instead, he took a deep breath and repeated, “Breathe.”
Hitoshi did. He could do this. He could obey.
Tsukauchi let out a long breath. When Hitoshi risked a glance at him, the detective looked tired. But more than that, he looked sad.
“Shinsou.” He regarded Hitoshi, in all his trembling glory, curled up like a child as he cried about a crime he’d committed. “I don’t see a criminal in my office today. Do you know what I see?”
Hitoshi sniffed and shook his head. Everything hurt, but not like after training. Not the good kind of hurt, the kind he’d earned of his own volition.
“I see a kid that was under extreme duress, doing what he could to keep his family safe.”
“That’s not—” Hitoshi was floundering. He felt like a rat in a cage. He curled up a little tighter. “That’s not an excuse.”
“It most certainly is—”
“Stop it!” Why was he so angry? The words were erupting out of him like steam from a shrieking kettle. “Stop! Just tell me I did the wrong thing!”
“Hitoshi—”
Hitoshi buried his face in his knees, cutting off Aizawa with a muffled sob. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t sit here and watch them pretend like nothing was wrong, like he wasn’t some villain in the making.
“Stop it.” He didn’t know what he was begging for, but he certainly was begging. “Please.”
“Stop the recording.” Aizawa’s voice was suddenly above him. He must have stood up, Hitoshi recognized distantly. There was a click and all at once, the hum of the machine went quiet.
Hitoshi didn’t lift his head from his knees, but he felt it when Aizawa knelt beside him, his hands ghosting around Hitoshi like he ached to hold him.
“Breathe. You’re all right. You’re safe.”
Hitoshi exhaled. The world was slipping away and he didn’t care to hold on. It was so much easier to just let reality slip through his fingers, to drift away where nothing could hurt him because nothing really mattered.
For a long time, he knew nothing but the haze of his own oblivion. Then he blinked and he was on his feet, leaning against what might as well have been a pillar, if not for the warmth it was radiating.
“—toshi. Come on, bud. Are you with me?”
Hitoshi blinked again slowly. His blood had thickened, turned to jelly inside of his veins, until he was hardly able to feel his feet tingling beneath him.
“You’re not in trouble.” Aizawa’s voice was low and steady. Hitoshi could feel it vibrating through his chest from where Hitoshi was tucked securely under his arm. “You’re safe. We’re going home.”
Home? That could just as easily have been a threat rather than a comfort. Either way though, Hitoshi could do nothing against the strong hands that helped him gently into his jacket.
His feet prickled beneath him as he was led out of the police station and guided into the passenger seat of a familiar-smelling car. When he made no move to buckle his seatbelt, someone else leaned in to do it for him. It was for the better— his hands might as well have been radio static for how much they were tingling.
The engine hummed beneath him for longer than he could understand. Through lidded eyes, he could see the city blurring past as they drove; though the blur likely had to do more with his inability to focus his vision than their speed.
All the way, someone spoke to him, their voice low and grounding and familiar. When he was ready, Hitoshi wrapped his metaphorical hands around the voice and tugged, dragging himself back down to Earth.
All at once, he blinked, his eyelids heavy and uncooperative. His head lolled slightly, his eyes finding Aizawa in the driver’s seat. The man glanced over at him and the tightness of his jaw eased ever so slightly.
“Hitoshi.” He sounded relieved. “Are you back with me?”
Hitoshi blinked. The air around him felt thick and heavy, like he was wading through sludge. It was a chore to even speak.
“Sensei?”
Aizawa relaxed marginally, an exhale escaping and his fingers flexing around the steering wheel.
“Good. Good. You’re here.” Aizawa sounded vaguely like he was reassuring himself.
Hitoshi sat up a little, looking down at the jacket he was now wearing. Where had that come from?
“You scared me, kid.” Aizawa’s voice— as low and rough as ever— carried more truth than Hitoshi knew what to do with.
Hitoshi swallowed thickly, crinkling his eyes and turning his head to avoid looking at Aizawa. “Sorry,” he said, his voice low and dragging. “Sorry. Don’t, uh—” He blinked hard again, his eyes burning against the sudden focus. “Don’t know what happened,” he lied.
“This sort of thing has never happened before?” Just a few weeks ago, Hitoshi would have considered Aizawa’s tone here unreadable. But now, he was able to detect the underlying concern in it.
He must have hesitated for too long because Aizawa repeated the question.
“Hitoshi, has this happened before?”
He shrugged. It pulled at his aching muscles. “A few times.”
“And how many times is a few?”
“Dunno.”
Aizawa let out a tense sigh, but fortunately for Hitoshi, he didn’t push it. Instead, he glanced over at him, his lips pursed, and said, “I know I’ve mentioned it a few times in passing, but I think we need to have a serious discussion about you speaking to a psychologist.”
“Don’t—” Hitoshi’s throat was dry, but he managed this. “Please, right now, can we just—” He exhaled shakily, tipping his head back against the seat. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
It was a cop out and he knew it, but he also knew that Aizawa would let him have it.
Aizawa sighed again. “Sure. Another time then.”
They were almost home, Hitoshi realized, finally beginning to recognize the streets around them. They’d had to drive to Hitoshi’s old district for the interview, so it was a decent distance away. He recognized the shop on the corner as Aizawa made a turn and knew that they were only a few blocks from home.
Huh. Home.
He wondered what would happen when they got there. But strangely enough, he found he wasn’t worried.
“Can I ask—” Aizawa sounded uncharacteristically hesitant. “Do you feel safe right now?”
Hitoshi’s eyes were hooded with exhaustion, but he managed to shift his gaze towards Aizawa. They were stopped at a red light and his mentor’s eyes were locked with his. Aizawa looked so strange like this— so uncertain.
“With you?” For the first time in a while, the truth came to Hitoshi’s tongue more easily than a lie. “Yeah.” He closed his eyes again, his head lolling against the window as exhaustion crept up his spine. “Yeah.”